A General FYI on missing papyrus and such
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_CaliforniaKid
- _Emeritus
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- Joined: Wed Jan 10, 2007 8:47 am
Blixa wrote:Love the comma between rank and amateur. Read much?
That's what made me wonder if he was going for something other than #5. ;-)
Glutton for abuse?
Frankly, I think you are better off spending your time writing the article. There is a difference between scholarship and apologetics. You don't have to respond to every apologetic obfuscation, defense, and attack to make a great contribution on the Book of Abraham. I actually can't see why you do bother.
Good point. Unfortunately, the article is in Don's inbox waiting for some modifications by him. My work on it is largely done.
However, I do have a paper on John Henry Newman and Renn Dickson Hampden due Thursday afternoon that isn't done yet. And I still haven't watched last night's Heroes or Chuck.
-CK
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_Bond...James Bond
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CaliforniaKid wrote:P.S. - Remind me again why I bother?
Something something something inspiring.....ah screw it. Shouldn't you be finishing papers (or are you procrastinating like me)?
"Whatever appears to be against the Book of Mormon is going to be overturned at some time in the future. So we can be pretty open minded."-charity 3/7/07
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_Trevor
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CaliforniaKid wrote:Good point. Unfortunately, the article is in Don's inbox waiting for some modifications by him. My work on it is largely done.
However, I do have a paper on John Henry Newman and Renn Dickson Hampden due Thursday afternoon that isn't done yet. And I still haven't watched last night's Heroes or Chuck.
-CK
Any of these is time better spent.
“I was hooked from the start,” Snoop Dogg said. “We talked about the purpose of life, played Mousetrap, and ate brownies. The kids thought it was off the hook, for real.”
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_dartagnan
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- Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 4:27 pm
Alright, Shirts is starting to piss me off again.
Funny how the backyard idiot failed to mention that this "rank amateur" has demonstrated far more knowledge than the LDS whom Shirts fails to also categorize as "rank amateurs." Most of the apologists at MAD don't even measure up to that status. They are overwhelmingly ignorant on the Book of Abraham issue, and it is Shirts' job to obfuscate and mitigate all the evidence that is available so they remain in ignorant bliss. He does so in way only Nibley and Gee could appreciate.
The whole agenda over at MAD is to downplay the evidence and pretend it is all just a game of speculation by a subjective group he calls "anti-Book of Abraham apologists."
I mean just look at how these idiots are responding. They actually think it is wrong to say "we" know these things, just because the apologists refuse to agree.
FIne, let's be more accurate. Everyone on planet earth who knows diddly about this issue, except for the LDS apologists, all agree that we have teh textual source for the Book of Abraham. This group includes Mormons, people who have left Mormonism after learning this knowledge, and people who have no stake in Mromonism whatsoever. On teh other hand, the group that insists, "we don't know this" is limited to LDS apologists only.
They have established the fact that they will deny all evidence and reject all logical conclusions no matter what, just so they can fall back on the technically correct statement that "it isn't indisputable" or "definitive." It is they who represent the subjective fringe, not those who accept the logical argument driven by the evidence. How many one-time TBMs have been converted to the critical viewpoint? Myself, Metcalfe, Ashment, Brackite, Runtu, and probably many others I can't think of right now. And how many "anti-Book of Abraham apologists" have converted the other way? None. Not a single one. I am still hard pressed to find a single MAD apologist who has a decent grasp of the situation at hand. William Schryver is perhaps the most informed, and he has already proven our point when he admitted that only a testimony driven person could conclude from the evidence that Joseph Smith was anything other than a fraud.
When people ask me why more apologists aren't convinced by the critical argument, I simply respond that most apologists don't appreciate or understand the significance of the evidence. And they prove my point all the time when they start one thread after another than illustrates just how dismissive and anti-critical they really are in the face of compelling evidence. And people like Shirts do everything in their power to make this the norm. Idiots like coggins and charity are long time apologists who still haven't the faintest clue about the real issue and the critical evidence.
This is because they are conditioned to listen to nothing unless it comes from Gee or Nibley. They actually think they are going to get an honest grasp of the critical argument by hearing about it from a "safe" source. The critical side is always going to be skewed in the MAD venue. It will always be watered down as "speculation" or anti-Mormon "agenda." They refuse to debate the issue openly because people like Shirts know perfectly well what the outcome would be. The apologist who doesn't subscribe to the anti-intellectual "no amount of evidence can dissuade me" principle - once crystallized by Pacman - will always be dissuaded. I was dissuaded once I stripped myself of that cognitive handicap. Others who do not subscribe to this fallacious principle have and will continue to be dissuaded just the same.
This is what pisses them off.
There is no hope in sight for them and their attempts to salvage the Book of Abraham. Their two heroes, Nibley and Gee, have proven to be dishonest and untrustworthy, further making the Book of Abraham embarrassment even more problematic.
Wow, a rank, amateur, anti-Book of Abraham apologist accusing LDS of deliberately overlooking evidence. That's nice.
Funny how the backyard idiot failed to mention that this "rank amateur" has demonstrated far more knowledge than the LDS whom Shirts fails to also categorize as "rank amateurs." Most of the apologists at MAD don't even measure up to that status. They are overwhelmingly ignorant on the Book of Abraham issue, and it is Shirts' job to obfuscate and mitigate all the evidence that is available so they remain in ignorant bliss. He does so in way only Nibley and Gee could appreciate.
The whole agenda over at MAD is to downplay the evidence and pretend it is all just a game of speculation by a subjective group he calls "anti-Book of Abraham apologists."
I mean just look at how these idiots are responding. They actually think it is wrong to say "we" know these things, just because the apologists refuse to agree.
FIne, let's be more accurate. Everyone on planet earth who knows diddly about this issue, except for the LDS apologists, all agree that we have teh textual source for the Book of Abraham. This group includes Mormons, people who have left Mormonism after learning this knowledge, and people who have no stake in Mromonism whatsoever. On teh other hand, the group that insists, "we don't know this" is limited to LDS apologists only.
They have established the fact that they will deny all evidence and reject all logical conclusions no matter what, just so they can fall back on the technically correct statement that "it isn't indisputable" or "definitive." It is they who represent the subjective fringe, not those who accept the logical argument driven by the evidence. How many one-time TBMs have been converted to the critical viewpoint? Myself, Metcalfe, Ashment, Brackite, Runtu, and probably many others I can't think of right now. And how many "anti-Book of Abraham apologists" have converted the other way? None. Not a single one. I am still hard pressed to find a single MAD apologist who has a decent grasp of the situation at hand. William Schryver is perhaps the most informed, and he has already proven our point when he admitted that only a testimony driven person could conclude from the evidence that Joseph Smith was anything other than a fraud.
When people ask me why more apologists aren't convinced by the critical argument, I simply respond that most apologists don't appreciate or understand the significance of the evidence. And they prove my point all the time when they start one thread after another than illustrates just how dismissive and anti-critical they really are in the face of compelling evidence. And people like Shirts do everything in their power to make this the norm. Idiots like coggins and charity are long time apologists who still haven't the faintest clue about the real issue and the critical evidence.
This is because they are conditioned to listen to nothing unless it comes from Gee or Nibley. They actually think they are going to get an honest grasp of the critical argument by hearing about it from a "safe" source. The critical side is always going to be skewed in the MAD venue. It will always be watered down as "speculation" or anti-Mormon "agenda." They refuse to debate the issue openly because people like Shirts know perfectly well what the outcome would be. The apologist who doesn't subscribe to the anti-intellectual "no amount of evidence can dissuade me" principle - once crystallized by Pacman - will always be dissuaded. I was dissuaded once I stripped myself of that cognitive handicap. Others who do not subscribe to this fallacious principle have and will continue to be dissuaded just the same.
This is what pisses them off.
There is no hope in sight for them and their attempts to salvage the Book of Abraham. Their two heroes, Nibley and Gee, have proven to be dishonest and untrustworthy, further making the Book of Abraham embarrassment even more problematic.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein
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_Runtu
- _Emeritus
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- Joined: Sun Nov 05, 2006 5:06 am
Kevin,
It wasn't Kerry Shirts who made the post, but T-Shirt. But lame it was. Chris is quite right that the evidence is pretty clear. T-Shirt's saying that other people disagree without even engaging the argument was about the poorest apologetic response I've seen. And then he says that Chris's credibility is gone. ROFLMAO.
It wasn't Kerry Shirts who made the post, but T-Shirt. But lame it was. Chris is quite right that the evidence is pretty clear. T-Shirt's saying that other people disagree without even engaging the argument was about the poorest apologetic response I've seen. And then he says that Chris's credibility is gone. ROFLMAO.
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_Runtu
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thestyleguy wrote:given all the other things Joseph Smith was up to between 1820 and 1844, why wouldn't this fraud be evident - it's one layer of a wedding cake.
What amazes me is the lengths people will go to deny the obvious about the Book of Abraham. But this is another sign that nothing Trump's a testimony. No fraud is obvious enough to make people even consider that their spiritual experiences might possibly be suspect.
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_SatanWasSetUp
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- Joined: Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:40 pm
Runtu wrote:
What amazes me is the lengths people will go to deny the obvious about the Book of Abraham.
It is amazing, but there is also a group of people who deny planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, despite the overwhelming evidence. I've come to realize there will always be small groups of people who believe crazy things. The Book of Abraham apologists are one of those small groups.
"We of this Church do not rely on any man-made statement concerning the nature of Deity. Our knowledge comes directly from the personal experience of Joseph Smith." - Gordon B. Hinckley
"It's wrong to criticize leaders of the Mormon Church even if the criticism is true." - Dallin H. Oaks
"It's wrong to criticize leaders of the Mormon Church even if the criticism is true." - Dallin H. Oaks